Shine Your Weird Light - Charlie Creese Reminisces On A Golden Era

Charlie Creese is an enigmatic figure for those of us who started climbing after the year 2000. When I first started bouldering, the hardest climb in New Zealand was probably still Check Your Head AKA 'The Scoop' (V10) at Baring Head. Though Castle Hill might have had a few rivals by then. Regardless, this boulder problem was just a few metres away from A Show Of Strength, a legendary boulder by Charlie Creese. This boulder was first climbed in 1981 and is famously New Zealand's first V8. Were there even V6s in 1981 you might ask? Well, no, because nobody used the V-scale for another ten years. 

As I learned the mystic arts of hard boulders, it was clear that even as grades had moved on, Show Of Strength was still considered a testpiece—and is to this day. I use it as my personal parsing metric for whether someone has strong fingers or not (no, I haven't done it).

Charlie Creese had long departed the New Zealand scene by the time I got involved. Rumours were that this teenage prodigy had raised the standard of New Zealand climbing in a few short years and then blown up his fingers doing too many pull-ups on door jambs. Which may be total myth. I later learned he'd been living in Melbourne for a ling time and still climbs and is involved in the indoor scene over there. I've even read a few articles by him over the years and always been impressed by how engaging his writing is, even if I'm never sure everything he says is true. Which isn't to say I think he's lying—it's just like reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles, where he retells his early years and path to fame. It's just a particular perspective and we all know history has no truth, only perspective and interpretation.

Charlie has recently published an article reflecting on his early years, available here on UKC and highly recommended reading for anyone interested in New Zealand climbing history. Whether you were there at the time or not. It even remarks upon the legend of Robbie McBirney, a mythically strong figure ("some kind of well-muscled Scottish Mafia") who had put up a legendary hard climb and then disappeared from the scene …

-Tom Hoyle